182 Unmarked graves found at former St Eugene’s Mission School near Cranbrook, British Columbia
June 30, 2021
CRANBROOK (AGN.News) — On the eve of Canada Day, the nation’s founding holiday, the remains of 182 bodies were found on the grounds of former St Eugene’s Mission School.
St Eugene’s Mission School was one of 130 compulsory schools operated by religious institutions in cooperation with the Canadian government from 1863 to 1998. More than 150,000 indigenous children were taken away from their families.
St Eugene’s was operated by the Catholic Church from 1912 until the early 1970s. Nearly 100 of the Lower Kootenay Band were forced to attend, the group said.
“You can never fully prepare for something like this,” said Chief Jason Louie of the Lower Kootenay Band, which is a member of the Ktunaxa Nation.
St Eugene’s Mission School operated with the aim of forcibly assimilating indigenous youth into Canadian society.
Evidence has come to light of torture, physical assaults, sexual assaults, and deaths at the hands of staff at many of these schools. Many children were left with life-long physical and mental disabilities. To coverup the mistreatment at the hands of agents of the state, school officials buried the dead in unmarked graves. Some of these graves were only three to four feet below the surface.
Going back to the 1800s, wooden crosses were used to mark graves. Over time, these crosses would disintegrate leaving unmarked graves. The Lower Kootenay Band is in search for answers after this discovery.
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